The Court of Justice of the European Communities gave its judgement in case C-11/99 Margrit Dietrich v Westdeutscher Rundfunk on 6 July 2000.
It is the second ruling to interpret Work with Display Screen Equipment Directive 90/270 (the earlier one was in an Italian referral for a preliminary ruling.
The judgement upholds Advocate-General Antonio Saggio's opinion, and dismisses the narrow interpretation of the Directive argued by Ms Dietrich's employer and the Dutch government.

On the scope of the Directive, the Court held that the idea of "graphic display" includes monitors for replaying film clips, so that work on monitors and the subsequent processing of digitalised film images is covered by the Directive. It also ruled that the notion of "control cabs for vehicles or machinery" (expressly excluded from the scope of the Directive) must be construed narrowly, and does not include workstations for processing filmed images.

The Court's interpretation is consistent with the objective of upwards harmonization, and aims to give the Directive teeth. In particular, the judgement notes that to construe the scope narrowly would deprive a significant number of VDU workers of the Directive's health protection provisions. What it establishes is that the Directive's provisions still apply regardless of the content or technical nature of the information displayed on-screen.

• Reference: Case C-11/99, Margrit Dietrich v Westdeutscher Rundfunk